A small number of state employees dramatically boost their annual salaries by clocking extreme amounts of overtime hours.

At least 27 state employees made more money in overtime than they did from their base salaries during the fiscal year that ended in June 2024. They did so even as the majority of the state’s 19,000 employees work no or negligible amounts of overtime.

One, Tarnue Korvah, a corporal with the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, made $127,231 in overtime on top of his regular $66,206 base salary, according to data provided by the Nebraska Department of Administrative Services following a Flatwater public records request. Korvah couldn’t be reached for comment.

The 27 overtime overachievers all work in either Nebraska’s corrections system or for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. And nearly all of the DHHS employees who doubled their take-home pay through overtime are “mental health security specialists,” a position similar to correctional officers, who work at the state’s two state psychiatric hospitals, the Lincoln Regional Center and the Norfolk Regional Center.

The Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 88, represents both corrections workers and DHHS mental health security specialists in Nebraska. The union’s president, Jay Wilson, said that both roles face similar challenges with staffing.

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